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I am Afraid to Forget Your Face
To My Grandfather
So What If the Goats Die
Ya Hoota
When Beirut Was Beirut
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San Diego Arab Film Festival 2022

In a cotton-farming village in Sudan, 15-year-old Nafisa has a crush on Babiker, but her parents have arranged her marriage to Nadir, a young Sudanese businessman living abroad. Nafisa's grandmother Al-Sit, the powerful village matriarch, has her own plans for Nafisa's future. But can Nafisa choose for herself?

Al-Sit

After an 82-day separation, Adam travels a rough road to be reunited with the one he loves, whatever it takes.

I am Afraid to Forget Your Face

The dust of war keeps the eyes sleepless. Night brings peace and sleep to all the people in the broken town. Only the eyes of the mother of the missing child stay resilient. Night has to trick her into sleeping to save her soul.

Night

Amal, a girl suffering from a mysterious condition, is fed up with being trapped in the darkness, with her overbearing mother. She decides to runaway and meet her father she never knew.

Phoenix

A short narrative film that takes place in war-torn Yemen and follows a young deaf girl, Saleemah who has one major love in this world; her camera which her brother Aqeel introduced her to. Aqeel works as a news reporter and is unable to take her out to film because he is preoccupied covering the war. Frustrated, Saleemah wanders out of the house during an impending air strike. To make matters worse, she loses her hearing aids.

Selahy (My Weapon)

A coming-of-age story where the inability to age due to a medical condition puts Mohammed in an ongoing struggle to prove his manhood in the face of masculine stereotypes.

The Shave

The Song of Sin retraces the story of Sufunis and Youba, couple of Imediazens, a tribe of the rif located in the North East of Morocco. Poets and musicians, heirs to an ancestral art, they are ostracized by a society that is looking for itself. Much more than a love story, the story of a people, is played out on these windswept highlands, between resignation and combat.

THE SONG OF SIN

This poetic hybrid documentary introduces us to three majestic abandoned buildings that witnessed Beirut's tumultuous history, and
come to life through a casual conversation amongst themselves. Using animation and archival audiovisuals, this film takes us back to the Golden Era of Beirut, when the Piccadilly Theater was filled with glamorous entertainment, the Egg was bustling with people in its local markets, and Beit Beirut housed an iconic hair salon and families living under its art-deco roof. When the Lebanese Civil War erupted in 1975, the lives of these buildings had changed completely, turning into bases for snipers on the demarcation line that split the city into East and West, based on religious sects. Years later, the August 4th 2020 explosion in Beirut awakens the three buildings from their slumber as they witness another chapter of the city's history, and reminds them of their troubling past.

When Beirut Was Beirut

A young, beggar girl, Aziza, attempts to find a service bus that puts
homeless girls into homes, by being at the right bus station at the right time. Aziza
tricks Fatima, her closest friend and mother

The Wild Nest
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San Diego Arab Film Festival 2021

FATIMA (10) tiptoes through the family home one night, peering through a door to see her father BABA (38) tending to her dying GRANDMA (92). Baba asks Fatima to say one final goodbye, but she flees to her bedroom filled with sorrow and despair.

Sitting sadly by the window with her trusty cat, Fatima hears the traditional drumming of the approaching Ramadan announcer EMSAHAR

Emsahar

2019 in Martigues, France, the French national amputees football team played against their counterparts from the Gaza Strip. Patrice Forget gives us an uncompromising documentary on the brutality of which Gazans are victims. With respect and empathy, the film focusses on the courage of these young men despite their handicap and their disastrous living conditions in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza, one football, one leg

A man in his seventies suffering from loneliness blames himself for the past and gets into a life changing situation

Life Appointment

Suhail, a young Emirati is going on a date with Leila. While the date seems to be going well, things soon start going pretty bad, the main reason, Suhail’s mother is in his ear and she is taking over controlling every step Suhail should be doing.

Mommy

Ome (My Mother)
Following the death of his mother, 9-year-old Elias goes to extreme lengths to naively bring her back from Jesus' heaven all while defying his faith.

My Mother

The Each morning, Yusef, a doting father-of-one, has no other choice but to queue for hours and navigate the harrowing Checkpoint 300, an infamous, crowded Israeli crossing point between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, to get to work on time. But, on his wedding anniversary, Yusef has arranged to pick up a new fridge for his wife, Noor, and even though the store is in JerusalemPresent

The Present


On June 9, 1967, Egyptian president at the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser appeared on television and the radio to inform Egyptian citizens of their country’s defeat in the war. During this unusual speech, he also announced his resignation. For many, Nasser’s speech marked the doom of the Arab nationalist movements that he had led and inspired; this moment encapsulates the loss and disillusionment of his pan-Arab vision.

"The Return of Osiris" weaves together footage extracted from numerous stylistically divergent Egyptian films and television series produced between 1976 and 2016. The found footage was edited to reconstruct Nasser’s resignation speech according to the original text.

By collecting, cataloging, and rearranging visual materials from popular culture, Palestinian artist Essa Grayeb’s film sheds new light on the challenge of conveying historical and political events in art along with the power that cinema has in building a collective memory, especially among post-traumatized nations.

The Return of Osiris

Two months after the massive explosion that devastated Beirut, the inhabitants of the city are still reeling from the force of the blast and the accumulated evil they have been subjected to for decades. Carol Mansour explored her city in the aftermath of the blast, talking to friends and exchanging reflections on what has happened and its implications on them, in candid unscripted voice note messages. Feelings of helplessness, frustration and overwhelming anger at the political class, permeate this short film as we are taken on a tour of the destruction of homes, livelihoods and lives.

Shattered: Beirut 6.07

Note: This film is in Berber languages with English subtitles. Abdellah, a young shepherd living in the mountains, is forced to brave the snow blocking him in order to get food and save his cattle. Once he gets to the village, he faces a supernatural phenomenon.

So What If the Goats Die

The Palestinian refugee Ibrahim Harb spent his life photographing people, telling their stories by transferring moments of their lives in a way that radiates Palestinian values and struggles. His granddaughter Bissan, followed her grandfather's way as she drew a road map of her journey to find beauty through the camera lens that her grandfather gave her. To My Grandfather is trying to refresh the memory with stories, memories and feelings.
A film by Aesha Balaha main character Bissan Harb

To My Grandfather

Based on a series of folktales and mythological creatures, Ya Hoota tells the story of a curious little girl who is determined to save the Moon from a lunar eclipse. According to her grandmother's tale, a lunar eclipse occurs because a whale eats the moon. As there will be no moonlight if the eclipse takes place, the little girl tries to save the moon from the whale.

Ya Hoota
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